1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pointer sliding mechanism intended to be used in a pushbutton tuner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
With a pushbutton tuner, when the button assigned to a desired frequency is pressed, a tuning core is so moved in and out of a tuning coil as to tune a radio receiver to that frequency; heretofore, the position of the tuning core, that is, the frequency thus selected, was indicated with a position on a scale of a waveband meter to which a pointer has been moved by a memory slide interlocked with the tuning core. In such a pointer sliding mechanism, the turning direction of the tuning knob should preferably be coincident with the sliding direction of the pointer. For example, as the tuning knob is turned clockwise to select a higher frequency, the pointer indicating a frequency should preferably be slid from the left of the memory plate to the right since this arrangement will facilitate the tuning to a desired frequency with a feeling of the coincidence in direction of the turn of the tuning knob with the movement of the pointer. In this case, there will be no problem so long as the memory slide is interlocked in such a manner with the tuning core as to slide in the same direction as the pointer as the tuning knob is turned. In some cases however, it is not possible, due to the positional relation between the memory slide and tuning core and to the design of a link for coupling them together, to make the memory slide coincide in direction of movement with the pointer. In such a case, for the coincidence in direction of the movement, there has been provided between the memory slide and pointer a link for the reversal of the movement of either the memory slide or pointer, which would make the pointer move in the same direction as the tuning knob even in case the memory slide is made to move in a direction opposite to that in which the tuning knob is turned. Nevertheless, any such pointer sliding mechanisms which has been proposed has a complicated design, and the pointer is moved along a path describing an arc; to avoid that the pointer gets in contact with the scale plate or a like member, the space in which the pointer is moved must be sufficiently wide. Thus, it is difficult to provide a compact design of pushbutton tuner.